Trump Meets Mexico’s President and Doesn’t Bring Up the Subject of the Wall

Building a wall from coast to coast on our border with Mexico was Trump’s most consequential 2016 campaign promise and the defining issue of the first three years of his presidency. Trump not only promised that he, the master real estate developer would build the wall, but also that he the master negotiator would somehow cajole or intimidate Mexico to pay for it.

Trump has abjectly failed to build the wall and to have Mexico pay for it:

“On December 17, 2019, acting Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan stated that 93 miles of barriers has been built during the Trump administration; according to CBP figures, at least 90 miles of that replaced existing structures.”

Wikipedia

Trump has given up on his outlandish promise, evidenced by the fact that when he hosted Mexico’s recently elected President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at the White House for the first time on Wednesday, he didn’t remind him that Mexico has yet to pay a dime towards his vanity project.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the subject didn’t come up when she was in the room. I’m not surprised, Trump didn’t want to risk having the Mexican leader tell him in no uncertain terms that Mexico wouldn’t pay for the damn wall.

Let’s not forget that Obrador’s predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, indignantly tweeted back in 2018:

Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever.”

Trump has less than a year left to wreak havoc, and I’m sorry to disappoint his racist base, but he’s not going to build the damn wall. In fact, he has replaced his fixation with the wall with an obsession with protecting Confederate monuments.